


The Communication of Dogs

by Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)



Series: Project Eclipse [25]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Attempted Murder, Drug Dealing, Drugs, F/F, Heroin, M/M, On Hiatus, Pre-War, Russia, Stabbing, World War III
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6623542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since 2017, Russia has split into two parts at war with one another. In the midst of the riots is a neutral group called The Deck, run by four members. When a member of The Deck decides to leave to find a former flame and comes back changed for the worst, will the group be able to keep itself safe from the conflict, or will World War III start in their absence?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Communication of Dogs

            Rurik Kuznetsov sat outside on a bench, humming the tune of Moonlight Sonata’s intro to himself on his harmonica. It was March of 2020. Snow still covered the ground, and it was rather chilly outside, so the Russian of African descent wore a fuzzy green parka and light lime gloves. He found himself making some mistakes, but he didn’t find it particularly frustrating since he was just playing his instrument of choice to pass the time.

            Rurik finally stopped playing when he saw a figure approaching him. The figure wore a long black coat, a black hat with a yellow band, a white turtleneck, and also had long golden hair. It was not just the hair, but the presence of an ivory and gold flower brooch on the left side of the coat’s chest that led Rurik to a name; Dashiel Vance. Dashiel was a friend and ally of his, and together they worked with _Koloda_ (or “The Deck” as they called it in English for Dashiel, who knew Russian but preferred English since he had been born in the United Kingdom) to help their fellow displaced Krasnoyarsk citizens.

            Rurik stood when Dashiel limped closer, leaning rather heavily on his black cane. See, Dashiel had a bad right hip that caused him a rather great deal of pain, and the state of his right knee was even worse. But still, something else seemed wrong. Rurik figured that maybe Dashiel had simply been sober today, which was better than seeing him walking without difficulty.

            “Hey, buddy!” Rurik greeted his friend happily. “What are you doing out at this hour? Aren’t you usually still asleep?” He teased lightheartedly.

            “I’m going for a walk.” Dashiel answered in a serious tone. “Through _Skver_ _Pobediteley_. Come with me?”

            Rurik shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

            Together, they walked in silence to the opposite side of _Skver_ _Pobediteley_. It wasn’t that Rurik didn’t want to make small talk, it was just that when Dashiel was sober, he didn’t very much like “pointless conversations”, and Rurik didn’t want to invade his personal space. But when they turned to begin walking back toward _Klub Avrora_ (“Club Aurora”), their establishment and place of residence, Rurik worked up the nerve to talk, if only due to the fact that Dashiel began limping harder.

            “Hey, dude, uh… Are you okay? I mean, I don’t mean to intrude or anything, but…”

            “I’m fine.” Dashiel snapped. Rurik went quiet again, and there were a few seconds of awkward silence before Dashiel suddenly said, “I went to _Opasnoe Mesto_ today.”

            Rurik’s head practically spun around to shoot Dashiel an accusing and disappointed glare. “You what? I thought—”

            “I asked if they had any _Tёmnyy_ ,” Dashiel continued, cutting Rurik off mid-sentence, “But it wasn’t them, Rurik. My dealer, he’s—he was dead, Rurik. On the floor.”

            Rurik’s glare became a gaze of shock and disbelief. “Who… Who did it?”

            “The pricks I asked for heroin. They got me pretty good.”

            Rurik looked down, and only just then did he realize that they were walking on a snowy trail that had some red spots on it. “Dashiel?”

            “Mm-hmm?”

            “That… That isn’t _your_ blood, is it?”

            Dashiel looked down; he too seemed surprised by the blood on the trail. “Oh. It does appear as though I am leaking.” He said this rather calmly for someone who was bleeding so badly, which did Rurik’s mind no comfort.

            “ _Chyort Voz_ _’_ _mi_!” Rurik exclaimed. “We’ve got to get you back to Club Aurora, quick! Where did they stab you?”

            “It’s fine, it’s fine,” Dashiel slurred in a singsong manner, though whether it was from pain or perhaps a heroin-induced high, Rurik was no longer sure.

            “It’s not fine, Dashiel! You’re bleeding!” As Rurik finished his complaint, Dashiel's legs buckled beneath him, and the man in his late twenties collapsed into the snow before Rurik’s eyes. “Dashiel!”

            The only response the slightly older male got from his friend was a light groan. Dashiel was down and out.

            “ _Chyort_ …” Rurik grabbed Dashiel’s hat, which luckily hadn’t flown away, and knelt beside Dashiel. Hesitating only briefly, he picked his friend up, and with the Caucasian’s feet dragging across the snow, pulled him along toward Club Aurora.

* * *

 

            “Will Spades be alright?” asked Ai Heng Xun, a small and cute girl with the most unnaturally pink hair, in her high-pitched voice that held a rather noticeable Chinese accent.

            “That’s what the doctor said. He just needs some rest.” Rurik answered, sitting beside the bed that Dashiel, codenamed “Spades”, now laid in. He was still unconscious, but Club Aurora’s in-building doctor had stitched him up.

            “That’s a relief…”

            “Is it?” The question came from Ludmila Bogomolov, who was the main source of funding for the group. The model shook her head to get his long brown hair out of her face before she continued, “I mean, he wastes so much time and money trying to get drugs and making us treat him when he messes himself up.”

            “So what?” Rurik replied, “So we should just let him die? He’s your boyfriend, Diamonds.”

            “Ugh. He’s not my real boyfriend, Clubs. He’s just my excuse for why I’m bothering with this _dyru_.”

            Rurik rolled his eyes. “Alright, so he’s an excuse. Then what’s the real reason?”

            Ludmila shook her head, clearly exasperated. She refused to answer, and instead said in a scolding way, “Hearts, don’t touch him. He’s dirty.”

            Rurik turned his head to see Ai Heng leaning over Dashiel, her mini-gloved hand over his forehead. As the girl moved away and faced Ludmila, her pink half-coat ruffled.

            “But he’s got a fever.” She said coyly.

            “He’s fine, Hearts.” Rurik reassured her.

            “I’m going to go get him a cold cloth.” Before anyone could convince her not to do so, the young lady excitedly ran out.

            “She’s just a bundle of joy, isn’t she?” Rurik laughed.

            Ludmila shrugged. “She’s too innocent for this if you ask me. This war…”

            “Look, it’s not a war yet. It’s just…”

            “Russia is tearing itself apart, Rurik. At the rate these riots are growing, it’s only a matter of time before another country gets involved, and then the media will be right.”

            “About what?”

            “You know ‘about what’.”

            “There will be no World War III, alright? We’ll… We’ll be fine. Russia won’t be the country to start anything.”

            “But another country might be.”

            Rurik lowered his head. Ludmila had a point; worldwide government had been growing rather tense since the Russian Riots began three years prior in Moscow. Since then, the riots had spread like the plague across the country. It was almost as if Russia had split into two sides at war with one another, like Korea.

            “America is particularly uneasy,” Ludmila added, “And you know that Russia’s already nuked them once before. What happens if they finally decide to return the gesture?”

            “It’s been, what, six years since then? They’d be a little late on that. I think they would’ve already nuked us if they were going to.” Even though he said this, Rurik could not deny that he still shared Ludmila’s fear.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Whispers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710486) by [Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry)




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